Estratégias jornalísticas da Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus nas eleições 2006/2008: o caso da Folha Universal

Abstract

This dissertation discusses the mediatic discursive strategies implemented by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus – IURD) through the newspaper in order to promote its insertion into the field of politics. The object of study is the weekly newspaper Folha Universal, from which the dissertation takes and examines a corpus of journalistic reports published during the period of the elections of 2006 and 2008 in Brazil. These two moments are emblematic for the analysis of the expression of the mediatic strategies developed by the IURD as bishop Marcelo Crivella was “constructed” as a protagonist in the campaigns in which he ran for state governor (2006) and city mayor (2008) in Rio de Janeiro. As a mediatic church the Folha Universal is a device through which the IURD discursively engenders mechanisms of political-electoral regulation and sensitization of that denomination among the faithful and society at large. The analysis focuses on the concepts of “reading contract”,